Tootsie Pops and a Little Bit of Fall Weather...

As I sit here to blog, I can see piles of clean clothes that need to be folded and piles of dirty dishes that need to be put in the dishwasher. BUT I would much rather blog than do those things. Actually I started this post last night but couldn't hold my eyes open long enough to finish it, so by goly, I am going to do this before this night ends the same way. Andrew has been deciding to get the day started around 5:30 am and by about 9:30 at night I am not good for anything.

So we have been enjoying some Nana and Poppy time over the last week which is always a treat. While we will get to see Nana again on Friday, Poppy had to fly back to Albuquerque yesterday. Ellie and Luke were pretty bummed, so to try and make the good-bye a little easier, he treated them to the best the BP station could offer-M&M's and Tootsie Roll pops. It definitely helped ease the separation. When we got in the house, I made them sit in one spot on the kitchen floor and told them not to move or they would never see their suckers again. I feel like I am pretty relaxed about most messes, but stickiness makes me kind of crazy.

Andrew has all of a sudden reached the "I will grab anything that I can get my hands on" phase. I kind of forgot and before I realized it, this happened-



Oh well, it made for some cute pictures.

We really enjoyed the beautiful day on Saturday!! Ellie and Luke have recently been into playing "hopsquatch". I'm not really sure where they learned it, but they really get into it-especially the hopping on one foot. And yes, Luke is in his underwear. Redneck, I know. Good thing we don't have any neighbors yet.

We're excited about football season around here. I am going to try to make it to Auburn at least once while I still have sisters in school there. From what I hear, they are living in college luxury. Sarah has a pool table and flat screen at her house. Quite a step up from my teeny tiny college dorm room. (Although I wouldn't trade those days for anything-fun times-quick shout out to all my rooomies-girls, you know who you are:)) Anyway, I plan on taking full advantage of the college lusciousness! I have recently taught Ellie and Luke the Auburn fight song. They love it! Steven and I had this deal before we had children, that if we had a girl I would be allowed to sway her to be an Auburn fan and the boys would be his to brainwash into pulling for the Dawgs. So far, I have not held up my end of the bargain...

War Eagle!!

Spiderman

I'm pretty sure I will miss things like this one day...

I noticed these two guys at the end of the day after everyone had gone to bed. Not the decor you typically see on the dining room window, but it sure did make me smile (and take a picture). It had Luke written all over it.

Cute sidenote: He doesn't really know anything about spiderman, we just got these in a happy meal. So all happy meal figurines are referred to as "spiderman".

A First

We've been dealing with spit-up all over the floor for the past 6 1/2 months.

But playing in it today was definitely a first.

It's just really hard to get upset when I'm looking at this.

Introducing...

Potty-trained Luke!

I think it's official. And some celebrating was definitely in order. We went to Wal-Mart today to make some new underwear purchases. He was excited to say the least. Here he is modeling not one, not two, but all three pair from the newly opened package. I tried to explain that he only wears one at a time, but a meltdown was coming on, and I thought, why not all three? If he did have an accident, it would be less likely to get on something.

It's ashame they put the big Lightning McQueen on the back. It makes it so hard to look at!

As if you hadn't noticed, he is OB. SESSED. with the movie "Cars". It used to be bad and then there was a break there for awhile. Now it is back like never before. After he had left for school the other day, I walked in my bedroom and saw this sitting on the bed. Just waiting for him to get home. You can see one of the Lightning McQueens has been loved on quite a bit. His eyes are rubbing off. Kinda like the Velveteen Rabbit.


Here are my other two troublemakers. I think Andrew has some of Ellie in him. Here he is thinking "teach me everything you know." As in today she was messing with Luke pretty bad and I told her "no dessert after lunch." Her reply was, "I didn't want any dessert, anyway." Wow! We deal with this type of thing on a pretty regular basis. She keeps me praying for wisdom.

I'll leave you with this last Ellie story:

The other day she was sitting on the step in time out. I told her that her attitude was terrible and suggested she pray and ask God to change her heart. I don't think she gets the concept of praying silently yet. I walked away and heard her praying very loudly "Puh-leeez, God, change my heart" "Puh-leeeeez, God, help me be sweet" and "Puh-leeeeeeeez, get me out of time out"

School Days

It has been quite the change around here the last couple of days since preschool has started. Luke will be going this year along with Ellie, so that is a blessing, since it will be just me and little guy for a chunk of the day. I am very much looking forward to a quieter house during the day and the chance to run a few errands with just one to get in and out of the car, rather than three. But not loving the adjustment in the mornings-getting everyone dressed, lunches packed, out the door by 8:30. Or the exhausted children that I pick up at 2:00 (neither one of them sleep during naptime at school). And it's always a decision whether or not to make them take a nap once they get home. Because if they do, they are so tired, they will sleep forever which=not sleepy at bedtime. So I usually just let them do something quiet, although, it doesn't ever really stay quiet for very long. And then when their heads hit the pillow between 7 and 7:30-they are OUT.

Unless the Lord makes it clear otherwise, this will be the last year they will go off to school and then I will tackle their schooling here at home. I am excited but mostly overwhelmed by that, to say the least, but Steven and I are pretty confident that God has led us to that decision. I am just glad we're starting at the beginning. We'll hopefully try and keep it simple.

Luke is in the 2 year old class (even though he will be 3 next month). And Ellie is in the 4's. Have I mentioned before that this is where I went to preschool as well? Her teachers this year were my teachers also. In my head they haven't changed a bit. They run a tight ship and I have a distinct memory of one popping me on the bottom once because I continued to work a puzzle after they had called us to circle time several times. (not hard, but it killed me) I don't know if they would do that anymore. Steven and I went to a parent's meeting on Monday night. (It also doubled as a date through the McDonald's drive-thru afterwards for a Diet Coke. Romantic, huh? The thing was we both kept saying how nice it was!) Anyway, we were discussing the meeting on the way home. One of the things they went over was discipline. Except they said we don't really like to call it that. We would rather use the word "redirect". This is in no way a knock on Ellie's teachers. They are excellent and I don't think it is their job to discipline. It is the parent's role! However, I think it is unfortunate that this word has become so negative. It says in scripture the Lord loves whom He disciplines. (Heb. 12 and Prov. 3:11-12). Discipline is a good thing. I could probably say a lot more but I guess I'll end my little schpill here.

On a lighter note--Happy Birthday to Laura Beth! My little sis is 27 today. It looks so old to see it rather than just saying it. What happened to when we could count it on our fingers? Hope you have a wonderful, stress-free, sick-free day. Love you! If you know her (or even if you don't) go on over here and wish her a Happy Birthday.

And one last thing that I just had to share. Have you ever been down the clearance aisle at Wal-Mart? Well, you should. Look what I found:

(all Martha-Stewart) Noah's Ark kit-animals made out of pipe cleaners
How great for a rainy day!

Honeycomb Thank you cards and birthday cardsBarnyard balloon animals!


And these cute little photo brag books. All of these things were around $2-3 each. Check it out!

I Want One!

No, not another baby. Just a camera like Sarah's so I can get great pictures of the babies I already have. She was playing around with her camera today and this is what happened...

It makes my kids look cute even when they have dried macaroni-n-cheese on their faces.

P.S. We survived the shots yesterday. As I had guessed, Luke did the worst (by far), Ellie did the best. Luke seriously had a panic attack. Tonight in the bath, he realized his little round band-aid had come off and was sobbing "I wost my shot, I wost my shot"

Guess Who...

I'm stealing these from Laura Beth's blog. If you've already read her blog today, then you're seeing these for the second time. These are pictures of LB and me on her second birthday. We celebrated in the same way that we just celebrated Ada's second birthday-McDonald's (the very same one only it's been remodeled several times since 1984) and Sesame Street. But I am mainly posting these so you can see the resemblance to one of my children in particular.

Did you guess? Luke!

Please think of me tomorrow around 3:30 and say a prayer. I am taking all 3 of my children to get shots. I have definitely called in for back-up.

The Last Couple of Days

How do you like my new blogging kick? Are you glad or thinking "get a life"? I think a lot of it is having a new camera and constantly having the urge to use it.

Yesterday was Monday=Steven's day off. He was oh-so-kind to let me go to Huntsville and leave Ellie and Luke with him. A dear friend that I hadn't seen since my wedding was in town and I wanted to see her. Laura Beth and Andrew came along for the ride and we also made a stop at good ol' Target which as it most often does-comes through for me with really great prices on really cute stuff! I got these on sale for $12.99:
(They are red-in case you can't tell. LB couldn't resist them either)

We also went to a fabric store and I picked up a few samples. It took me forever. I know Laura Beth and Andrew were about ready to push me out the door. There are just so many and I love so many and I get very overwhelmed. So this is what I found. (I am not about to buy any of this BTW, I just like to know what I would do if I could.)

I would like to revamp my couch. The old pillows are more of a red, well, more of a rust color. Not my favorite. This is what I would like to have pillows in:
And I would really some pillows made out of this for my bed:

I will accept any design advice from much more experienced designers than myself. I went to 3 years of school for interior design. But that is where it ended. I especially am lacking in my experience with fabrics.

Because of all my time spent away from the house yesterday, this is what I am dealing with today:
And those aren't all, there are lots more dirty in the laundry room.

While I am trying to catch up, Ellie and Luke have been busy pretending. I have to step in fairly often to break-up fights, but for the most part, I would say it has been a huge blessing to have them so close in age. They fight hard, but they play hard. As you can see in this picture, kitty (Ellie's attachment since she turned one) spent most of the morning napping in Andrew's bed. Not really sure why there are tissues covering his face.
No more potty stories to report. I just thought I would show you the cute face behind all the messy disasters: (Notice the band-aid on his shirt)

The Continuing Saga of Potty-training with Luke

I know you are so excited to get another one of these posts. But if you've every potty-trained a child before, you can probably relate (unless I'm doing something terribly wrong). And if you've never done it-this is what you can look forward to :) They say boys are harder and so far that is true for us.

We had a fun party last night and there will be pictures of that later, I'm sure. But I don't want to steal Laura Beth's thunder and I wanted to go ahead and record this so I wouldn't forget.

I went to CVS this afternoon to get several of their freebies-lots of basic school supplies. I left Andrew well-fed and ready for a nap, and Steven, Luke, and Ellie on the play room floor "taking a nap" in their new play tents. I was gone about 45 min. and when I got home, Steven came down the stairs holding a very splotchy-red faced Andrew. He said that it had been chaos and also "I don't know how you do this everyday", which as any SAHM knows, that comment is always appreciated.

He said Luke said "I need to poopy". Which as he would soon learn, really meant, I am in the process of or already have. So they quickly head to the bathroom and Steven pulls the pull-up off only to empty quite a bit of poopy onto the floor. (our white tile floor) He said he got it all cleaned up, which I was a bit skeptical of since he said he used hand soap. So after I got Andrew settled, I went in with some real bathroom cleaner. We also had some laundry issues to deal with.

In spite of all the potty-training issues, I still had time for some baking tonight. Yesterday, I went to our local farmer's market. Things must be peaking for the season, because there was soo much great stuff. I got these
And these
And thought...hmmm...blueberry muffins would taste really good. So Andrew was taking a really good nap and Ellie and Luke were watching a movie, so...

Well, I gotta go change another dirty pull-up.